Image: A sensor descends into a hole in the Antarctic ice (B. Gudbjartsson/National Science Foundation).

The world's largest detector of high-energy sub-atomic particles was recently completed in Antarctica.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is located in a glacier in the Antarctic plateau at the South Pole. More than 5,000 sensors have been placed in 86 holes drilled 2½ kilometres deep into the ice.

In less than a year, they have observed nearly 20,000 rare collisions between water molecules and high-energy sub-atomic particles called neutrinos.

Darren Grant, a University of Alberta physicist involved in the international collaboration behind IceCube, spoke to Quirks & Quarks about the observatory and his hopes that it will find evidence of dark matter.